


you remind me of [a former love] / [a few of my famous friends]

by thymetodance



Category: Badflower (Band), I Don't Know How But They Found Me (Band), Panic! at the Disco, The Heart Rate of a Mouse Series - Anna Green
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, I just think Josh is neat, M/M, Post-Canon, THROAM, dallon deserves better, do i know how to write the 80s? the answer is probably no, i.e. the author read throam two months ago and still hasn't stopped thinking about throam dallon, ryan is the better, the heart rate of a mouse - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28856694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thymetodance/pseuds/thymetodance
Summary: Dallon comes home from Europe with a broken heart, wounded pride, and a stack of paperwork finalizing his departure from the band he fell in love with (fell in love in). He finds himself picking up the pieces with some unexpected help.
Relationships: (Past/Unrequited) Brendon Urie/Dallon Weekes, Josh Katz/Ryan Seaman, Ryan Seaman/Dallon Weekes
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	1. au revoir (adios)

**Author's Note:**

> also known as: i read throam for the first time in the year of our lord 2020 and my ridiculous shaky brain would not let me rest until i wrote dallon a happy ending, or something. add in a lil bit of badflower hyperfixation on the side and. i gesture sadly to whatever this is. it sure is 2021, huh.
> 
> kudos + comments are always greatly appreciated if u do enjoy <3 i have been notoriously bad with chaptered fics in the past, so here's hoping i manage to see this one through lmao

> _you know what i think's really sad? / i know how really sad you are  
> _ _i'm probably gonna leave real soon / just wanted to let you know_
> 
> _before i say au revoir, au revoir / you probably don't even know what that means  
> _ _au revoir, au revoir / you probably don't even know what that means_
> 
> _she says that it's french, i know what it means / you don't have to be so mean  
> _ _if you wanna leave, why don't you go?  
> _ _right before she walks away / i'm pretty sure i hear her_ [ _say_](https://youtu.be/2QcyoYnoVqE) _,_

| | |

Dallon splits from the others as soon as they reach O’Hare. He doesn’t have a car, doesn’t have anyone picking him up, but that’s fine. It’s all fine. The sooner he can load his luggage, bass guitar and all, into a cab and go home, the better.

Or, at least, he means to. Something freezes him to the spot halfway to the stairs down to baggage claim. The sign’s right there, above his head, big white letters practically screaming escape. Refuge. Go this way to go the fuck home. 

Jon spots him, breaks away from the group to clasp a hand over his shoulder, mumbles something about a dinner he and Cassie are hosting at their place tomorrow night, if he wants to come by, maybe, if he’s not totally sick of them. He says that last part with a smile, the tail end of which turns into a grimace, as if he’d forgotten up until the last second that Dallon _is_ sick of them, just a little bit. At least, he’s sick of some of them.

It’s going to suck, losing Jon as a friend, Dallon thinks. He’s been a blessing, always a constant, steadying presence, never temperamental or spiteful, even in the worst of times. Everyone should have someone like Jon in their lives. Dallon’s going to have to learn how to manage without again.

A part of him insists that he doesn’t, that of course they can still be friends. Jon wouldn’t abandon him. 

The rest of him thinks of Ryan and Brendon on the other end of Jon’s dinner table, foreheads tipped towards each other and secret smiles on their lips, thinks of Jon onstage with them every night, in the bus, the studio, being _their_ friend, and knows otherwise.

It must show on his face. Mike takes Jon’s place when he slinks away back to Cassie’s side with barely so much as a half-smile; Dallon suppresses the twinge of guilt at the man’s slumped retreating shoulders and turns his attention to his soon-to-be former manager, willing his expression to remain impassive.

“We’ll send you everything you need to look over and sign as soon as we can,” Mike says, tone similarly, forcedly neutral. “Your address is still the same?”

Dallon nods stiffly. He’s been in the same apartment since he moved to Chicago nearly ten years ago, chasing a half-formed dream and escaping a tired-out nightmare in equal parts. Even after Brendon found him and pulled him into His Side with those flashing eyes and easy grin and Dallon watched the money in his bank account balloon, he couldn’t bring himself to move out. The Mormon urge to put down roots in a place and stay there never fully left him, even when it meant shitty apartments in shitty parts of town with shitty landlords and water damage in the ceiling. 

“If you ever need anything, Dallon,” Mike continues, voice softening a little into something almost uncharacteristic of him. “Help getting in touch with producers, contracts, anything. Let us know. I’m—we’re looking out for you.”

Dallon wonders briefly if Mike was killed and replaced with a double on the long flight over the Atlantic while no one was looking. “I’m,” he starts, before realizing he has no idea what he wants to say. _Thank you? I’ll keep it in mind?_ _Fuck you, I don’t want anything to do with any of you people for the rest of my life?_ None of the possible responses feel right, and none of them feel like the truth. Hard to say when he doesn’t even know what the truth is.

So he just nods again, lets Mike shake his hand for what feels like the last time and probably is. Dallon would feel worse about giving Mike a hard time with all these lineup changes, if it weren’t for the fact that he just _knows_ there’s a lot more money in the band’s—and by extension their manager’s—future, with not one but two former members of The Followers on the team now. They both know His Side is going to do just fine without him.

Mike takes his leave. Dallon shoulders his backpack, just to give himself something to do, his feet still glued to the floor. He’s going home. He’s getting out of here and going home as soon as he can. He can’t wait. 

And yet.

He casts a look back in Brendon’s direction before he can stop himself. He’s standing next to Ryan, close but not too close; it doesn’t seem like either of them are saying anything. Dallon can see it, though, the way they’re oriented towards each other, so subtly it’d be imperceptible if he didn’t already know it was there. He’s more than familiar with it by now. Seen them in the tour bus together enough times: rarely actually touching, but closed off to the rest of the world entirely, something suspended in the space between them that Dallon could never compare to. That was obvious enough.

Brendon shifts, turns his head like he’s getting a crick out of his neck, and for a second his eyes meet Dallon’s. By chance entirely. He wasn’t looking for him.

Dallon’s stomach churns. His legs suddenly kick back into motion, and he’s walking now, in the direction he’s supposed to. Past the baggage claim sign, down the stairs, to leave, to go home, to go away, away, away.

If there was anything on Brendon’s face that would have meant anything, Dallon didn’t look long enough, hard enough, close enough to see. He’ll live with that.

| | |

The papers show up in the mail just as Mike promised not three days later. The man is nothing if not punctual. 

Most likely he’s just eager to get the new lineup confirmed and sent out to the public for them to rave over. The headlines are going to be crazy, whip up a frenzy around the band. The label will be pushing them to start work on a new album yesterday.

Dallon indulges himself in wondering how they’ll play now, with him gone. Probably Jon will switch to bass; he’d been the bassist in his band before Ryan, the one with the drummer who’d punched Brendon for being gay. Jon had mentioned that one weed-hazy night on their first tour with a sort of hangdog expression, like he’d been the one to land the blow, but Brendon had just rolled his eyes and changed the subject, as if he was completely and totally over literally getting hatecrimed. Maybe he was.

In any case.

Dallon spends a long afternoon filling out paperwork, spends way too long staring at legal jargon that he’s not making any effort to actually understand, then sends it off back to Mike, digs a beer out of the fridge, and starts packing.

| | |

Jon calls him at the end of the week, after Mike had already phoned him to let him know everything had gone through. Dallon is officially ex-His Side.

“Dallon,” Jon’s voice comes through the line, and he almost sounds like a disappointed mother. It makes the hair on the back of Dallon’s neck stand up.

“Jon,” he responds tersely. Jon sighs, the sound crackling against Dallon’s ear.

“D’you want to get dinner tomorrow night?” he asks. There’s somehow no pretense in the question, something only Jon could accomplish. Just an honest, earnest invitation. Dallon can’t refuse it.

So he drags himself out of his apartment the following evening and drives down to the diner by the studio where they’d recorded the album. He doesn’t know if Jon had chosen this place solely for its familiarity and its half-decent coffee, or to try to jog some sort of emotional response out of him, maybe, through memories of when things were good, uncomplicated. Rouse him into changing his mind, coming back. _We still want you in the band. Don’t leave. Deal with being around the man you fell in love with and the person you lost him to everyday. I don’t want to play the bass again._

Jon’s waiting for him in front of the building when he unfolds himself from his car, a cigarette loose between his lips. He takes it from his mouth and smiles warmly as Dallon approaches, as unequivocally friendly as he’s always been. 

“Hey, man,” he says, reaching out to sling an arm around Dallon’s shoulder. “Good to see you.” He doesn’t comment on Dallon’s absence from the Walker household dinners as they go in, or his radio silence since they’ve gotten back from Europe. Nothing he says or does holds any indication of what Dallon knows he must be dying to talk about. He extols his bizarre praises of Chicago weather, charms the blushing waitress into seating them at the corner booth with the most privacy the place can manage, and talks at length about the cat he and Cassie are planning to adopt. Dallon smiles and nods as appropriate. It’s not disingenuous—he really does enjoy talking to Jon. He's just waiting for the shoe to drop.

Finally, as Dallon is taking the first sip of his second cup of coffee, squinting his eyes against the steam, Jon leans back against the cushioned seat back and says, “So.”

_Here we go_. Dallon sets his mug down slowly, and echoes, “So?”

“You’re leaving the band.” Jon tilts his head ever so slightly, studying. “Why?”

“Why do _you_ think?” Dallon says. It comes out snappier than he meant it to, harsher than Jon’s quiet question warranted.

“Is it Brendon?” murmurs Jon, then adds after a beat, “And Ryan?”

Dallon snorts, but he finds himself unable to look Jon in the eye. He stares into the dark brown depths of his cup as he says, “You could say that. I mean. It's not just that.” Some ugly mixture of frustration and pain and deep, deep exhaustion bubbles up in his chest. He feels like a child, angry over petty playground romance. He doesn’t want to be. “I never—I never really wanted to be in a band in the first place. I was trying to go solo, before—”

“Before Brendon found you,” Jon finishes. His expression is solemn, when Dallon’s gaze flits up to his face. 

“Right. I, you know, I was having trouble getting off the ground, and he seemed so convinced I was what the band needed, I couldn’t not believe, and he…” Dallon trails off. He can’t think about that anymore, about the way Brendon’s eyes lit up when Dallon played for him that first time they met, the excited tremor in his voice when he said _you have to join, you’re perfect_ , and something in Dallon reared its sad little head.

_I’m gay_ , Dallon had blurted, as the sun set and the sky darkened through the studio windows. Brendon had just grinned, and winked, and Dallon had understood.

“Brendon does have a way of ensnaring people,” Jon observes sagely. Dallon raises an eyebrow at him, a wordless _what do you know about that?_ Jon laughs, soft, a sort of long-suffering affection woven into the sound. “I don’t have to swing the same way as you guys to be able to tell. I mean, he got me into the band too, didn’t he?”

“You’d known him for a while, though,” Dallon points out. Jon waves it off.

“Doesn’t mean I couldn’t have said no. Cas would have preferred that, honestly, after how The Whiskeys fell apart. She thought anything to do with Ryan Ross was poisoned.” 

Dallon can’t help the bitter twist in his stomach. “Did you agree with her?”

The corner of Jon’s mouth quirks up. “Maybe a little. I guess it didn’t stop me, though.”

“Right,” Dallon says in acknowledgement, and then falls silent. How different would things be, he thinks, if he’d walked away from all of this at the start. If Jon had said no, if Ian hadn’t followed Brendon from New York into a world he was never going to be ready for, pockets full of drugs or not. _If, if, if._

“I’m sorry about everything,” Jon says, then, reaching across the table to fold a hand over Dallon’s. “I really am.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Dallon manages. He doesn’t. Jon may very well be one of the only innocent parties in this whole thing.

“Yeah, well. I’m still sorry.” He offers a gentle smile that Dallon wishes he could bring himself to return. “We’ll miss you, you know. Don’t think we won’t.”

“All of you?” Dallon says skeptically. Spencer barely knows him, and Ryan, well. _Ryan._

Jon, at least, looks sheepish at that. “Brendon will. _I_ will. I don’t want you to become a stranger, Weekes. Come by sometime. I know for a fact Cassie thinks it’s not healthy for you to be in that apartment by yourself all day.”

“I’m moving,” Dallon tells him. Jon’s jaw goes a little slack. “To Los Angeles.”

“Oh.”

_Oh_ is right.

“Well.” Jon clears his throat, makes an aborted motion towards his coffee cup. “Shit, Dal. I—when?”

“Next month. Been packing all week.” There’s no satisfaction in watching the devastation on Jon’s face, no vindication in knowing he does mean something to his bandmate of over a year. Right now, he just feels awful that he’s the one causing that anguish. _Next month_ is a matter of days.

“I’m glad I caught you before you left, then,” Jon says a long few moments later. “Were you planning to just up and go without telling anyone?”

_No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know._ Dallon just shrugs in lieu of an actual answer. That probably says enough in and of itself. 

“As long as you don’t drop off the face of the earth,” says Jon, affecting a joking sternness. Dallon would almost think he’s already recovered from the shock of the news, if it weren’t for the way his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ll still call?”

“I will,” Dallon promises. If it’s a lie, he can’t tell yet.


	2. last night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> breezy mvp. get into it.

> _i was born in '53 / with all my life in front of me  
> _ _i thought you'd care to notice / i just want you to notice me_  
>  _mama, maybe it's today / maybe today he'll say_  
>  _"i don't know what i'd do without you / don't know what i'd do without the words that i hear right now  
> _ _i'm sorry i've been gone and i'm coming home / i'm coming_ [ _home_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FrcXuMnVe8)."

| | |

It’s not until he’s already on the threshold of the unassuming, sleet gray house that Dallon starts to have second thoughts. His hand is hovering at the door, knuckles turned to the wood ready to knock, the cab he’d taken here is disappearing around the corner, and yet, suddenly.

He hasn’t been in touch with Breezy in years—not since she’d pressed one final kiss to his cheek outside the airport terminal and taken off in pursuit of the opportunities in sunny California, of Hollywood and the silver screen. She’d left her new address on a note stuck to Dallon’s fridge, but he didn’t get the chance to ever reach out before things started spiraling out of control. By the time he’d found his footing again, well. The window of time for that had passed. She never called, either.

But here he is now standing on her front doorstep, still in the clothes he’d worn on the plane and a bone-deep weariness settled in his spine. Knowing his luck, she doesn’t even actually live here anymore.

He takes a deep breath to steel himself—it only partially works—and knocks.

There’s a long silence, during which Dallon starts to consider turning around and just walking all the way back to the hotel room he’d haphazardly dumped all his luggage in before heading out here, then there’s a rustle of movement from inside the house. Dallon’s ribs squeeze around his lungs and he straightens up subconsciously, tries to look as prim and proper as possible through the peephole. Another pause, then—

The door flies open, and Breezy suddenly appears in front of him, her brows drawn up and her hazel-green eyes wide in a mix of shock and disbelief. Her hair is dyed dirty blonde and just brushes her shoulders; she’s got dark circles that weren’t there the last time Dallon saw her. She’s as beautiful as he remembers her being. 

“Hi,” he says.

“Oh my god,” she responds.

That’s not particularly promising. “Bad time?” 

She’s just staring, the sound of the midday news emanating faintly from somewhere beyond her, looking like a hundred cogs are turning in her head, but Dallon can’t for the life of him figure out what she’s thinking. _Shit, shit, shit._ Maybe they’re not cool. Maybe she doesn’t want to see him. Maybe he should leave. Maybe he’s been doomed from the start and is only making things worse. 

Then she shakes her head vigorously, like she’s rearranging all the thoughts in her brain, sends her sleek hair flying in the dry breeze, and looks at him, really looks at him. And Dallon sees her again, the same person he’s known for years.

“Holy _shit_ , Dallon Weekes!” Breezy cries out, throwing her arms out in wonder. “Look at you! Come here!”

Dallon shuffles forward and gladly allows himself to be enveloped in Breezy’s tight embrace. She smells like roses and vanilla. He breathes it in.

“My god,” Breezy says when she lets go. Her eyes are still wide, and she’s looking him up and down appraisingly, hands on her hips. “Looking as good as ever,” she declares, even though Dallon knows his hair is a mess and his clothes are hopelessly wrinkled and he’s got—he’s got a _pimple_ on his forehead, for fuck’s sake, he’s 34 and he’s got _pimples._ “It’s so good to see you. Why didn’t you tell me you were in town? How long have you been here?”

He got here at, what, 10 AM local time? So… “About an hour and a half ago, if you don’t count all the time they made us spend waiting to get off the plane.”

Breezy’s eyebrows inch impossibly higher up towards her hairline. “To what do I owe this very urgent visit, then? Not that I mind, I’m so glad to see you, I just mean.”

Dallon rubs at his temple with the heel of his hand, pinches the bridge of his nose. He does not want to have this conversation right now on Breezy’s doorstep. Maybe not ever, if he can really help it. “It’s, uh… complicated.”

Bless her soul, Breezy gets it immediately. “Well, shit, never mind all that, come in! Are you hungry? I was just about to eat lunch,” she says, already bustling back inside, “but I always make too much for myself anyways, there’s more than enough. Pasta?”

Dallon hesitates for a second on the doormat; Breezy notices, looks back over her shoulder with a quizzical look. “I just,” Dallon says, a little helplessly. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you until now.” Breezy’s curious face breaks into a smile, and Dallon feels for a second like he’s 24 years old again, staring in awe at this sunspot of a woman across the kitchen table as she invites a broke, friendless, hopeless gay ex-Mormon unconditionally into her home.

“Yeah, well,” she says airily, flapping her hand in his direction, “we’ll see how much that sentiment still stands after you’ve had a taste of this spaghetti. I haven’t cooked for anyone else in _ages_.”

“You’re incapable of making a bad meal, Douglas,” Dallon laughs, and steps inside.

| | |

Breezy Douglas is indeed incapable of making a bad meal, Dallon decides as he gulps down pasta in a manner that is probably deeply, humiliatingly undignified. He’s been running on an empty stomach—not including shitty airport coffee, which is more like jet fuel than it is sustenance for a living, breathing human being—for way longer than he’d ever like to; he’d be thanking the Lord above for Breezy’s cooking if he still believed in Him. In lieu of that, he flashes Breezy a smile that he hopes comes off as sufficiently appreciative when he pauses to take a well-needed drink of water. Breezy wrinkles her nose playfully at him in response. 

“So,” begins Breezy as she leans back in her chair. Dallon’s getting a distinct sense of déjà vu. “You left your band and took off from Chicago in one fell swoop. What’s that about?”

So she’s been keeping tabs on his career, knows he’s left His Side. Dallon feels a pang of guilt as he notes how little he knows of what _she’s_ been doing the past few years. “Technically, I left the band a few weeks ago,” Dallon mumbles. Not that it makes a difference, really. Semantics.

Breezy levels an unimpressed gaze at him. “Semantics, Dallon.” _Hey._ “What happened?”

“Things just weren’t working out. You know how it is.” He knows Breezy’s not going to buy that. She’s way too smart. He wasn’t expecting her to.

Indeed, the corner of her mouth twitches in that way that Dallon knows means _bullshit, Weekes._ “I mean, forgive me for being a little confused. I think a lot of people are.” Breezy takes a contemplative bite of her own food, tilts her head at him as she chews. “I don’t really know what was going on backstage, of course, but from what I could tell things were going great. You were killing it out there, Dallon, especially with—what’s his name, Brendon Roscoe—”

“Roscoe, yeah,” Dallon scoffs before he can stop himself. “That’s his name.”

Breezy pauses, raises one carefully shaped brow. “I’m sensing a level of irony, here.”

Dallon stabs his fork into his spaghetti more viciously than the poor pasta ever deserved. “Roscoe’s a stage name. It’s not even his real last name, and he never—I didn’t find out until halfway through our Europe tour. He never told me.” 

Mike handing him the plane tickets in the hall outside his Paris hotel room and muttering _would you drop these off with Ryan, please_. Dallon making his way to Brendon’s room, worry like a stone in the pit of his stomach, something bitter and jealous and angry simmering at its core. An unfamiliar name printed in neat black letters on the little slip of paper in his hands.

Jesus, he really had been played like a fucking fool the whole damn time. 

Breezy actually does look a little surprised at that, pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Really? I can understand not telling the public, but his own band?”

Dallon nods, biting his lip against the ruder things he could say, wants to say. _I guess he needed to keep things to himself to feel smarter and more special than the rest of us. With a last name like Urie, I’d hide it too._

_He cheated on his last boyfriend for months. I think he’s just used to keeping secrets._

Except he doesn’t want to say those things. Not really. They’re hateful and mean-spirited and. He doesn’t hate Brendon. For some bizarre reason. He still doesn’t.

Being in love with someone for months forms patterns of thought that are hard to shake, he supposes.

What he ends up saying is, “Yeah. Our manager knew, of course, and Ian and Jon, because they knew him from before the band, but our drummer and I…” He taps a finger against his temple. “Not a clue. I think Bob still doesn’t know, quite frankly.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Breezy says with a frown. 

_You haven’t even heard the craziest part,_ Dallon thinks. “Isn’t it,” he says.

The silence that falls over the room is palpable. Dallon’s tongue feels awkward and foreign in his own mouth. 

“Whatever happened, I’m sorry,” Breezy says carefully.

Dallon swallows the bitter lump in his throat and attempts a weak smile. She’s sorry, he’s sorry. They’re all sorry. “Enough about that.” He waves it off, imagines the memories of Paris dispersing into the air as he does. “How have things been for you?”

Breezy brightens quickly, obviously sensing his desire to move on from the subject. “Pretty good. Getting jobs. Stuff for magazines, mostly.” Her eyes flash as she arches her neck gracefully and slots her gaze to Dallon. “I know you don’t usually pay attention to all those photos of gorgeous women, but keep an eye out for me, yeah?”

Dallon laughs as he nods obediently, warmth pooling in his chest again already. Breezy’s wonderful. Why did he ever let himself stop talking to Breezy? “For you, I will. No woman holds my eye like you.”

“Aren’t you a charmer,” Breezy teases. “You _know_ there’s probably an alternate universe out there where we’re happily married.”

“If there is, I’m probably much better off in it than I am here.” Absolutely he is, having Breezy Douglas as a wife. Lucky Heterosexual-Dallon.

“You flatter me, Dallon. Gonna get a big head if you keep talking like that.” Breezy rises from her seat, taking her dish in hand. “You have any plans for today? How long are you going to be in L.A. for?”

_Oh, right._ He forgot to mention that. “Um. Indefinitely, probably.”

Breezy freezes halfway to the sink and twists back around to stare at him incredulously. “You—you’re staying here?”

“I’m, uh. Yeah, I am.” Some weird amalgam of shame and defensiveness stirs in his gut. Like Breezy’s judging him, running from his band—running from his home, like a coward, like he did the first time, leaving Chicago, leaving Fillmore—

“Well, damn, that’s incredible,” Breezy says, something like awe in her voice. That—that can’t be the right response. “Biting the bit and uprooting yourself like that, that’s not like you at all, Dallon. Consider me impressed.” 

Dallon’s blindsided by her reaction, even though he really shouldn’t be, now that he thinks about it. Breezy’s always been a fan of big, bold moves. It’s why she’s here in California. 

And now he’s here, too. Isn’t that something.

“Do you have a place already?” Breezy asks, then. She’s got an intent sort of tilt in his direction. “Where are you staying?” 

“I haven’t actually found a place yet,” Dallon admits. “I was planning to just stay posted up in a hotel until I did.”

Breezy balks at that. “Are you kidding me? Absolutely not. You can take the guest bedroom here. God knows it hasn’t seen any use in ages. Do _not_ argue with me, Weekes, I’m not letting you waste money on a hotel room when there’s a perfectly good space in your friend’s house,” she adds severely when Dallon opens his mouth to protest.

Truth is, Dallon wants to accept about as much as he doesn’t. It feels like too much at once, sharing space with Breezy after only just now reconnecting her after far too long. Sharing space with _anyone_ , when the last time he did, he ended up fleeing the entire state of Illinois to get away from them. On the other hand, the last thing he wants to do is be left alone with his own thoughts in the stark, artificial hominess of a four star hotel room. God knows he’s had enough of that.

So. “Alright, alright,” Dallon sighs, putting his hand up against any further argument. Breezy’s hospitality is as fierce as it is wholehearted. “Not for long, though. I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can.”

Breezy grins victoriously. “Whatever you say, sir.” She finishes rinsing off her plate and places it in the dishrack to dry, wiping her hands off on the front of her blouse absently as she continues, “I’m going out to an open mic tonight, do you want to tag along? Meet the city and all that. Only if you’re not too tired, of course.”

Dallon considers this. His whole body aches, his legs stiff and sore from airplane seats that are always, _always_ too small for him, but the thought of loitering around Breezy’s house alone while she’s out is, frankly, mortifying. Besides, he reasons with himself, Los Angeles is basically a brand new city to him, nevermind the fact that he’s come here on tour with His Side once before, and it’s _big._ Better he get started acquainting himself with it sooner rather than later, right?

“I have to, y’know.” Dallon gestures awkwardly to himself. “Get a change of clothes. Take a shower.”

“Oh, right, ‘course,” Breezy answers easily. “It doesn’t start until 6 PM, I can write the address down for you and we can meet there? Give you a chance to take some time and get yourself nice and refreshed.”

Dallon can’t help a good-humored scoff. Nothing more refreshing than showering in a poorly lit hotel bathroom and digging clothes out of a suitcase after a long flight. “Sounds good to me.”

“Great!” Breezy’s still smiling as she makes her way back over to him, curls her fingers warmly over his shoulder. “I’m really glad to see you, Dallon. Seriously.”

Dallon squeezes her hand, smiles back up at her. “Me too.” And he is.


	3. no shows

> _pay for the devil, a plug to a pedal / i’m your type  
> _ _weak knees from the level, i’m sick from the treble / i’m your type of metal_
> 
> _weak knees don’t go / 'cause we don’t need no_ [ _shows_](https://youtu.be/FsDSIEq7O08) _._

| | |

The address Breezy had given him takes Dallon to a respectable little establishment that looks more like a coffeehouse than a bar from the outside; it’s the kind of place that seems like it would be just Breezy’s thing. It’s much more to Dallon’s tastes, as well, in all honesty—more so than the clubs most of the guys in the band gravitated towards.

_The band._ Dallon does a mental doubletake, standing on the pavement looking up at the building. He’s still thinking like he _has_ a band. It’s sort of depressing to realize it’s going to be a while to get himself out of that habit.

He’s still hesitating on the sidewalk, unsure if Breezy’s arrived yet and reluctant to head inside to look for her, when there’s a flurry of movement, people loading equipment out of a van parked on the curb a short ways down the street. As Dallon watches, someone wearing a bandana wrapped around his forehead that is doing very little to keep the hair out of his face and a guitar slung across his back pokes his head into the back of the van and calls something to whoever’s inside. A moment later, a man with shaggy dark brown hair and a worn leather jacket emerges, triumphantly brandishing a drum stand; he passes it off to the bandana guy and hops out onto the concrete, brushes himself off and flashes a grin at the other man. 

Dallon feels a strange sense of recognition even as the two men walk into the bar and the doors swing shut behind them. He panics briefly, wondering if they’d opened for His Side, at some point, maybe, but it doesn’t match up in his head. He only really recognizes the man who is presumably the drummer, and he remembers the drummer from their supporting band for the west coast dates—a young, wild-haired lesbian who’d once gotten drunk after a show and spent a significant amount of time standing on one of the green room tables cursing Anita Bryant’s name with an awe-inspiringly profane vocabulary before eventually being persuaded to sit down by one of her bandmates. Dallon specifically remembers nudging Brendon, mumbling _she’s a good one_ and meaning it. Brendon had smiled at him over his beer and whispered back, _you’ll be seeing her at the marches, alright._

A hand on Dallon’s shoulder startles him out of his thoughts; he jumps and turns around to find Breezy blinking up at him, looking a little surprised herself.

“Gosh, sorry!” she says, dropping her hand. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t make you wait too long, did I? Driving around here is a nightmare.”

“No worries, I just got here.” Dallon shakes himself off and offers his elbow to Breezy. His mother taught him to be a gentleman. “Shall we?”

Breezy takes it with a delighted laugh, remarks, “Very chivalrous, thank you,” and they head in. 

Inside is a blur of bodies and sound, as such places usually are. There’s a clear space on one end of the large open area where a couple amps are being set up. Some brunette kid wearing a t-shirt with sleeves that seem way too big for him sits perched on a stool fiddling with an acoustic guitar. A familiar, quiet ache settles in Dallon’s ribcage. 

“Doesn’t this kind of remind you of when you were first starting out?” Breezy voices his thoughts for him. “Skinny little kid with a guitar at an open mic and all.”

“Yeah, but I was practically doing exclusively street corners for months—this guy’s got a roof over his head and a relatively captive audience,” Dallon retorts. He can’t deny some small part of him misses it, though, the uniquely manic energy in getting up in front of a crowd of strangers with nothing but a second-hand guitar and his own voice. It was humiliating at the worst of times, but when things went well, they _went well._ When something worked, it was because _Dallon_ made it work, on his own.

He misses that.

Breezy leans up to speak into Dallon’s ear to be heard over the growing noise of the bar as more patrons start to file in. “I’m gonna go get a drink, you want anything?”

“Uh, I’m alright,” Dallon shrugs back, distracted, and Breezy nods and vanishes. He’s scanning the room, searching for something that isn’t there. Another old habit: back on tour, in a place like this, he’d be keeping one eye on Brendon and one on Ian the whole time, god bless the pretty, willing girls—and boys, in increasing frequency—trying to chat him up because he was in the band. It, at least, usually didn’t take them long to realize they didn’t have a chance, both because he wasn’t interested (a condition which only grew over the months he spent in Brendon’s company) and because he was far too busy making sure his bandmates weren’t going to get themselves abducted and/or killed.

He has no such obligations tonight, though, something his subconscious mind apparently hasn’t caught onto yet.

Breezy returns with a beer in hand, condensation dripping onto her neatly manicured nails, just as the kid onstage finishes tuning his guitar and steps up to the microphone. 

“Hey, everyone, thanks for coming out,” he says. There’s a sort of twitchiness to him, the way his voice trembles almost unnoticeably, the way his eyes dart back and forth around the half-attentive audience. “And, uh, thanks to Michael for hosting this. I’m Josh, this is a song I wrote.”

Despite his apparent nerves, the kid is, admittedly, a whole lot better than Dallon ever was at his first few gigs. His voice is high and a little thin, but there’s a rasp and a rawness to it that catches Dallon’s attention and holds it. He’s got a palpable intensity, pressing up close to the mic, brows furrowed as he sings. Dallon doesn’t catch all the words, but what he does catch is—shit, it’s actually. Really good.

When he reaches the end of the song—crashes into it, really, the notes stalling abruptly as he gasps out the last line—the kid leans back away from the microphone, seemingly to take a few deep breaths. Dallon swears he can see the rapid, uneven rise and fall of his chest even from where he’s standing. A few moments, a weak smattering of applause, then the kid’s jittering crystalizes instantly back into that mesmerizing fervor as he launches into his next piece. 

“He’s good,” Breezy muses after they’ve been standing in silence watching for a while, looking contemplative as she motions superfluously to the kid with her bottle. “You can tell his heart’s in it.”

“Needs a better audience than this,” Dallon mumbles in response. “They’re barely listening to him.”

Breezy just shakes her head like a disapproving mother; she pushes her beer into Dallon’s hands briefly when the kid wraps up his song to clap enthusiastically. It apparently rouses some of the people around them just enough for them to remember to applaud as well. The kid smiles slightly, in relief, almost, a nervous flash of white teeth.

“This next song is a cover,” he announces in a feverish sort of whisper. The shaking in his voice is a lot more pronounced now. “It’s, uh, by a band you might know.” The audience perks up a little more at that—Dallon knows from experience that people that don’t know you are always going to be more receptive to stuff you didn’t write yourself. He just hopes the kid knows not to take it too personally. “So. Here’s _Miranda’s Dream_ by The Followers.”

_Oh. Yikes. Yeah, no. Absolutely not._

Dallon taps Breezy’s shoulder to get her attention, tells her, “Hey, I’m gonna step outside for a few,” as the kid starts up a familiar melody. “Need some air.”

Breezy’s eyes flash with worry as she angles herself more fully towards him. “Yeah, no problem. Do you—you need anything, or?” She hasn’t made the connection, bless her soul. Probably for the better.

“No, it’s alright. Really,” he insists when she keeps looking at him, unconvinced. “It’s just kind of stuffy in here.”

Finally, Breezy lifts her skeptical gaze from him, gives him a thumbs up as she turns back towards the stage. He smiles gratefully at her— _thank you for not asking, thank you for just letting me, you are the most wonderful woman in the world_ —and makes his escape just as the kid starts to sing—

It’s not that he has such a problem with Ryan Ross that he can’t even stand to hear his music, he reasons as he settles against the brick side of the building, breathing in smoggy L.A. air; it’s like Chicago in just about every distinguishable way. Drier, maybe. 

It’s not even like he has that much of a problem with _Ryan Ross_ , not really. Well. Not so much his person. It’s just. Everything. That he was a part of. 

And _Miranda’s Dream_ —Miranda’s _goddamned_ dream—Miranda who never asks where you are, Miranda dancing with her captors every night at every show like a vigil, a ritual Dallon took part in without even knowing what it really meant. Singing and playing along with Ross’ words thinking it was a tribute when it was really some fucked sort of, what, mating call? _Hello, Ryan Ross? It’s me, Brendon. Come back to sweep me away now, please, I’m waiting._ Jesus.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, honestly, that all the ancient history of _this past year_ keeps showing back up in Dallon’s life. Moving from one big city to another was never really going to do shit, nor was he really expecting it to. People liked The Followers, liked Ryan Ross and the Whiskeys. Fuck, people liked His Side.

Dallon doesn’t smoke, never has, but in this moment he almost wishes he did, just so he’d have something to do with his hands. He feels awkward and a little pathetic, out here in the Los Angeles evening alone, watching cars and pedestrians pass.

Good to know that performing in front of hundreds of people for nights on end for months doesn’t change you all that much, after all. 

By the time he goes back inside, the kid’s cleared off and has been replaced by a three-piece dutifully chugging through a cover of a song Dallon’s heard on the radio a couple times but never actually paid attention to. When he squints, he can make out their faces enough to recognize the guitarist and the drummer as the guys he’d seen out front earlier. The crowd’s shifting more, now, with the familiar tune, bobbing and shuffling along. He can’t tell where he’d left Breezy.

Now is as good of a time as any to get a drink, he decides, and turns to find a bartender.

An absurd amount of time later, he finally acquires himself a beer—no thanks to the push of people trying to get their drinks before everyone else, as if they’re all in a rush to be somewhere. He goes out of his way to grab himself a seat at the bar to drink, then, almost entirely to spite the guy standing behind him who’d been complaining about his feet for a full five minutes. Dallon never claimed to be a perfect person.

He takes his sweet, sweet time with it, too; by the time he’s finished his bottle and started to push back through the mass of people to try to find Breezy, the next act, some folksy duo with more tambourines than any two people should need, is halfway through their set.

He still hasn’t spotted Breezy when he hears a surprised utterance of “Dallon? Dallon Weekes?” somewhere to his left; he tenses automatically, bracing himself to be confronted with some chattering, starstruck His Side listener, probably hoping to spot Brendon Roscoe alongside him. He can smile and play nice for a fan ‘til kingdom come, learned to pretty quickly, but _god_ , is he not in the mood for it right now.

When he turns, though, it’s the drummer from earlier standing in front of him, looking more incredulous than anything. Dallon is once again struck by how much he feels like he’s seen him before, especially now that they’re up close. He knows him, somehow, his downturned brown eyes, slight cleft chin, pointed nose, even his overgrown haircut curling around his ears. 

He only realizes he’s staring when he realizes the other guy’s been staring right back. “Um,” Dallon says intelligently.

“Shit, it is you,” the man says, deep voice tinged with disbelief. “Woah.”

“Uh.”

The man blinks at him, then something seems to dawn on him; he pulls back slightly, looking almost sheepish. “Right, um. You probably don’t remember me. Sorry.” 

_Oh,_ fuck, Dallon thinks, _he_ is _from one of the opening bands. Fuck, I’m an asshole._

Except then the man says, “I’m Ryan, Ryan Seaman? We went to school together, in Fillmore. Your dad was my soccer coach,” and the floor tilts sideways under Dallon’s feet.

“Oh,” he chokes out. Then, “ _Oh._ ”

He remembers now, vaguely: Ryan Seaman, who’d been two years behind him at that miserable high school, Ryan Seaman who’d been kicked off the soccer team after getting caught drinking behind the bleachers, Ryan Seaman who the mothers on Dallon’s street shook their heads at the mention of. _It’s kids like him that are the problem with this community. Did you hear his family doesn’t go to church?_

Dallon had never talked to him, really—he spent most of his time holed up in the band room talking to the director or plunking away at the piano he didn’t really know how to play. Ryan ran with a different crowd, one that Dallon’s parents told him on multiple occasions to stay away from.

Ryan smiles faintly, his eyes crinkling up. “Yeah. Small world, right?”

Dallon shakes himself out of the flood of memories and extends a hand towards him in an effort to be polite. “Jesus, yeah, what are the chances. You made it out of Fillmore, then, huh?”

Ryan takes it, shakes firmly. His grip is sure and the pads of his fingers are rough and callused. “Sure did. So did you—like, big time.” He lets go and shoves his hands into his pockets, sort of rocking on his heels. “I saw you on a magazine cover a few months back and had to do, like, a triple take. It’s not often you see someone you went to high school with on the front of _Rolling Stone_!”

Dallon ducks his head to hide the grimace that automatically tries to claw its way onto his face, hoping Ryan takes it as bashfulness or humility. “Yeah, I—I guess so. Doesn’t usually happen to guys like us,” he admits. Something flashes across Ryan’s face at that—confusion, an expression that inexplicably seems like alarm. “Guys from Utah,” Dallon clarifies. _Shit. Does he think—_ “Anyways, what about you? I saw you were, ah, playing the drums and all. Are you based here in L.A?”

“Shit, you saw that?” A faint blush rises in Ryan’s cheeks. “I’m glad I didn’t know you were here earlier, I would have psyched myself way out.”

Dallon’s not sure how to take that. “What, why?”

Ryan shrugs, lips curling in a nervous smile. “I mean, it’s some pressure, to have you watching, right? You’re, like, a real seasoned musician. Your songs are on the radio and everything.”

“To be fair, they’re mostly not really my songs,” Dallon argues, and ignores the way that reminder stings. “Brendon wrote most of our stuff.”

Ryan, to his credit, doesn’t seem fazed by the admission. “Yeah, but you still played on ‘em. That counts for something.”

“Fair enough,” Dallon says, if only because he wants them to move on from the topic.

“So what’re you in L.A. for? Last I heard you guys just finished up that Europe tour or whatever.”

Dallon opens his mouth without knowing what he’s supposed to say next; Ryan apparently doesn’t know he’s left the band, and Dallon is not particularly inclined to explain that entire ordeal, but he has no good excuse otherwise, and he’s never been good at making shit up on the spot. 

“Dallon, there you are! I was wondering where you went.” It’s at this moment that Breezy Douglas, the best person in the entire world, appears as if out of thin air at Dallon’s side, the neck of a bottle held daintily between her fingers. “Who’s your friend?” She looks to Dallon with a glimmer in her eyes that’s asking if she should make herself scarce, leave him to it. She’d be an incredible wingman with that sort of instinct, if that was what Dallon was doing here.

It really, really isn’t though.

“Oh,” he says, brain yet to catch up with her sudden reappearance. Ryan’s curious, level gaze still boring into his skin doesn’t help. “Breezy, this is Ryan. Ryan, this is my friend Breezy. We went to high school together,” he explains quickly for Breezy’s benefit.

Her eyes slide to Ryan, a split second of scrutiny flashing across her face before it splits into an award-winning smile. “Nice to meet you, Ryan! You were on drums for one of the acts, weren’t you?”

Ryan blinks at her, almost like he’s surprised, then nods. “I was, yeah. Friend of a friend—asked me to fill in since their usual guy’s sick.”

“Well, you all sounded great,” Breezy enthuses. Dallon bobs his head stiffly in agreement, as if he hadn’t spent their entire set nursing a spite-beer. “You don’t usually play here, do you?”

“Nah, I’m more of a basement show kind of guy. I don’t mind this stuff, but.” Ryan jerks a shoulder upwards, offhanded. “It’s a different crowd, you know.”

Breezy nods sagely. “I know just what you mean. _Anyways_.” She draws herself up to her full five feet and eight inches, gives the both of them a significant look before announcing, “I’m off to the ladies’ room. Dallon, stay here. You are incredibly easy to lose for how much of a giant you are.”

Dallon and Ryan both watch her leave in silence. She is and always has been so delightfully strange.

“I think I’ve seen her in my dreams,” Ryan says after a moment. “I think she pulled my teeth out.”  
  
That startles a genuine laugh out of Dallon. Ryan’s gaze flicks to him quickly at the noise. “Jesus, no, yeah, I just.” Dallon stifles a snort. “That checks out. She’s a weird woman. It’s wonderful.”

Ryan’s brows furrow nearly imperceptibly, but he doesn’t say anything, just chuckles as he fidgets with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt.

Someone calls Ryan’s name from across the room in a yell that cuts shrilly through the noise of the bar. Ryan winces and whips around to find the source of the sound; Dallon follows his line of sight and spots the skinny kid from before hopping up and down by the staff door, his guitar hanging off one shoulder as he gestures wildly in a way that could approximately be interpreted to mean _come over here._

“Shit, that’s me,” Ryan says, unnecessarily. “I have to get going, my, uh—my friends wanted to do something after the gig.” He turns back to Dallon, expression apologetic. “It was super cool running into you. We should—” He stops himself, chewing on his bottom lip uncertainly before continuing, “We should hang out, again, sometime. If you want.”

_Yes, we should,_ Dallon thinks immediately, and then, _hold on, what?_

Ryan’s looking up at him, all hopeful and nervous, and he’s as much a remnant of a past Dallon swore to never think of again as he is representative of something entirely new, and then he’s saying, “For sure, I’d love to,” before he’s even thought about it all, watching Ryan’s face light up, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes deepening with his smile.

“Sweet. I can, uh—do you have, uh, a piece of paper or something, I can write my number down—” 

Dallon shakes his head a little helplessly. He’s still trying to pin down his own train of thought in his head, and doing a very bad job of it. Ryan mutters a quick _hold on_ and jogs over to his friend, who is still waiting by the employees only door; he says something into the kid’s ear, at which he starts digging around in his pockets and produces something he hands to Ryan. Ryan takes it and starts back towards Dallon, dodging between tipsy patrons as he goes.

“Here we go,” he says triumphantly as he comes to a halt in front of Dallon again, what looks like half of a crumpled receipt and a thoroughly chewed-on pencil in each hand. He scribbles a series of numbers onto the paper and offers it to Dallon. Dallon accepts it, lets his gaze fall to the messy scrawl, thick smears of graphite already smudging under his fingers. “Just, you know. Gimme a call if you want. I’ve got some more gigs coming up, if you wanted to come by, I dunno, it’s up to you, of course—”

He’s rambling; it occurs suddenly to Dallon that to him, Dallon is a literal rockstar he just happened to know over 15 years ago, that he’s daring to even attempt a suggestion of friendship with, and Dallon is just _standing_ here staring blankly down at him. The poor guy’s nerves are shot to hell.

“Definitely,” Dallon says, finally, the realization dislodging the words stuck in his throat. He smiles as encouragingly as he can, hopes it’s genuine. “I’d love to. That sounds great.”

“Yeah?” Ryan exhales harshly, one great outward breath. He’s smiling back, though; something about it makes a funny warm feeling swell in between Dallon’s ribs. 

“Yeah.” Dallon glances past Ryan to where the kid is starting to bounce impatiently, craning his neck to see what the hold up is. “I think your friend’s getting antsy.”

Ryan jolts at that, like he’d totally forgotten until Dallon reminded him. “Shit, right. Josh is gonna have my ass, I’ve really gotta run.” He glances up at Dallon again, eyes bright in the yellow-dim light, blurts, “I’ll see you around, then,” and is gone.

Dallon looks down at the numbers curling up in the palm of his hand, and thinks, yeah. Maybe he can live with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, also, i made a throam dallon playlist a little bit ago, if you'd like to [take a listen](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3wHdx39Az5tjTza9ZHf1tD?si=JJuEp3gnSqq0kWznMXCJww). it's in roughly chronological order, and also focused on volume iii itself, not much of what's happening in this fic lmao. might make a playlist for that another time, who's to say.


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